Francis revealed that his $30 development costs were paid off 64 seconds afterGunpoint pre-orders went live

Um, for most people, their time has "value". I am guessing he spent more than an hour or two making the game. The headline makes it sound like that game made tens of thousands of dollars in a minute. The fact that he got maybe 2 orders for his game in a minute, while that extrapolates out well, is not that dramatic.

dletter:Francis revealed that his $30 development costs were paid off 64 seconds afterGunpoint pre-orders went live

Um, for most people, their time has "value". I am guessing he spent more than an hour or two making the game. The headline makes it sound like that game made tens of thousands of dollars in a minute. The fact that he got maybe 2 orders for his game in a minute, while that extrapolates out well, is not that dramatic.

Telos:$30 in development costs... guessing he didn't include his time, his development tools or anything else. Or maybe he paid some Indian kid $30 to actually write the game...

Or maybe he did is as part of his hobby and therefore didn't count his time as a "price." I sure as hell don't count my time on Fark or time spent watching television series as money lost. And those development tools can all be had for free. Just go open source.

dletter:Francis revealed that his $30 development costs were paid off 64 seconds afterGunpoint pre-orders went live

Um, for most people, their time has "value". I am guessing he spent more than an hour or two making the game. The headline makes it sound like that game made tens of thousands of dollars in a minute. The fact that he got maybe 2 orders for his game in a minute, while that extrapolates out well, is not that dramatic.

This. If I were to use the same measurement as justification for a story on the Escapist...

...my t-shirt designs I do in my spare time make me the next Warren Buffett.

dletter:Um, for most people, their time has "value". I am guessing he spent more than an hour or two making the game. The headline makes it sound like that game made tens of thousands of dollars in a minute. The fact that he got maybe 2 orders for his game in a minute, while that extrapolates out well, is not that dramatic.

One only needs to look at Kickstarter to see that most people don't have the slightest understanding of getting paid for what they do.

DerAppie:Or maybe he did is as part of his hobby and therefore didn't count his time as a "price."

As someone who is close to releasing a game demo, I can tell you that when a game gets to the point where it's ready for a polished release, it is not a hobby any more. Labor of love, maybe, but not a hobby.

aerojockey:DerAppie: Or maybe he did is as part of his hobby and therefore didn't count his time as a "price."

As someone who is close to releasing a game demo, I can tell you that when a game gets to the point where it's ready for a polished release, it is not a hobby any more. Labor of love, maybe, but not a hobby.

I envy you, i've had a 2d space game bouncing around my head for close to a decade and still can't program worth a damn =(

DaStompa:aerojockey: DerAppie: Or maybe he did is as part of his hobby and therefore didn't count his time as a "price."

As someone who is close to releasing a game demo, I can tell you that when a game gets to the point where it's ready for a polished release, it is not a hobby any more. Labor of love, maybe, but not a hobby.

I envy you, i've had a 2d space game bouncing around my head for close to a decade and still can't program worth a damn =(

I would love to make a game as a hobby but fear that I will hate all the work and frustration.

Summercat:I'm using Python for a text-based turn based strategy. I know what I want, I just don't know where to *start*.

Although I might try unity, but... I have an inability to learn coding languages, except apparently Python. And that, none too well.

Well, a lot depends on what you want to make, but if you don't even know where to start then a good place is to use tutorials to build someone else's game. You will learn the tools and also perhaps get a glimpse of what you need to get better at more specifically.

The writing is well done and comical. The gameplay is either a puzzle game if you wish to do the missions without being seen, or a stealthy-action game if you go the violence path.

I have been very happy with my $10 spent on this one.

I started the game with the stealth route, but had far too much fun knocking out the guards in strange ways to continue that.

I like to just keep punching a guy as much as you can and it will show some funny comments on screen, up until it just starts counting the punches (when you hit 100 or so)

I was happy with the $10 on it too (played the demo and almost immediately bought it). Way more enjoyment than many other things I've gotten on Steam for $10 or less (Dear Esther, Home, etc) Initial run through took about 2-2.5 hours, but then you can replay to get better scores or achievements, or restart to make different choices at the few branch points. Plus it has a user level editor for more replayability.

Speaking as someone who used to write games for a living, I'm getting a kick.....

Seriously... I was doing that stuff back in the days of Director. I wrote SO many different types of game models. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Lemmings, shoot-em ups, etc... Plus, I duplicated many of the 3-match puzzle style games like Columns and Bejeweled.

When I first started seeing people making versions of these games for smartphones, I really feel like I missd the boat.

I got layed off from the job back in like 2000. That sucked. I loved that job.

Egoy3k:When penny-arcade mentions your game in a positive light you tend to make money.

This. I've looked into a number of games they've mentioned and I usually end up buying it.The first time I saw Gunpoint on Steam I just glanced at it and passed. When I read the PA rant about it, I took a closer look. I'm still on the fence, but I might buy it this weekend and give it a try.

SacriliciousBeerSwiller:Someone already said it, but it should be reiterated: time has value. One can safely assume that a person who is smart enough to do something like this is worth anywhere from $50-200$15-45 per hour.

aerojockey:DerAppie: Or maybe he did is as part of his hobby and therefore didn't count his time as a "price."

As someone who is close to releasing a game demo, I can tell you that when a game gets to the point where it's ready for a polished release, it is not a hobby any more. Labor of love, maybe, but not a hobby.

I know. I started my 2 1/2 Men fanfic because I loved the idea of Jake, Alan and Charlie constantly having sex together, but by the time it was ready for publishing on the Kindle people were demanding that I spell words correctly and find a synonym for "cockthrust" because I used it too much. It went all corporate, man, and stopped being art.

Beta Tested:Summercat: I'm using Python for a text-based turn based strategy. I know what I want, I just don't know where to *start*.

Although I might try unity, but... I have an inability to learn coding languages, except apparently Python. And that, none too well.

Well, a lot depends on what you want to make, but if you don't even know where to start then a good place is to use tutorials to build someone else's game. You will learn the tools and also perhaps get a glimpse of what you need to get better at more specifically.

I've coded before. Right now, the point I'm at is figuring out where to start on the coding design. I know how I want the game to go, it's figuring out the shapes of the pieces and how they all go together I'm working on now. It's just, I've got a LOT of pieces and not much clue where to start! *chuckle*

So, where I don't know where to start refers to the programming design outline. I've a vague idea of where I want to go, I just need to, well, work on it. ...hahahahha like I have a work ethic

Honest Bender:Egoy3k: When penny-arcade mentions your game in a positive light you tend to make money.

This. I've looked into a number of games they've mentioned and I usually end up buying it.The first time I saw Gunpoint on Steam I just glanced at it and passed. When I read the PA rant about it, I took a closer look. I'm still on the fence, but I might buy it this weekend and give it a try.

That or install the kethane mod for KSP and play around with that...

Kethane is pretty slick. You can do a mining/refining operation on Minmus (lower gravity, lower fuel expenditure) and send fuel wherever from there. Of course, you can do it on the Mun as well, but you use more of the fuel and oxidizer you just went through the trouble of making to get it into orbit.

Or, you can use the smaller modules to make return trips for your manned (Kerbed?) missions easier to pull off. I'm not sure if all planets/moons have deposits, but the local bodies (Mun, Minmus, Duna) did last time I played with it.

durbnpoisn:Speaking as someone who used to write games for a living, I'm getting a kick.....

Seriously... I was doing that stuff back in the days of Director. I wrote SO many different types of game models. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Lemmings, shoot-em ups, etc... Plus, I duplicated many of the 3-match puzzle style games like Columns and Bejeweled.

When I first started seeing people making versions of these games for smartphones, I really feel like I missd the boat.

I got layed off from the job back in like 2000. That sucked. I loved that job.

Director is a pretty awesome program for game designy things (we still use the thing for putting quick prototypes together). It's a shame that Adobe basically abandoned it when they wound up acquiring it when they bought out Macromedia to get Flash.

Unity isn't too bad to learn. I've been trying to learn Cocos2d/Xcode, and man, I just can't believe that anyone without extensive proamming experience can make a game in that.

If you want to see if programming is for you, I suggest you go check out the Scratch programming system from MIT (A game framework called Stencyl uses this as a base). Scratch is pretty dead simple, and 10 year olds use it as a "My First Videogame" language.

Summercat:Speaking as a guy with a strong grasp of what he wants, and the programming ability to do a (limited) version of it, and no idea on where to start, I envy this guy :P

/Complained on IRC channel that I don't know where to start.//Got told to draw ponies. :(

Gotta agree with the "Get Unity" poster. Here're a few tips.

1. Go here http://unity3d.com/ to download the editor. It should come with what you need.2. You might have to ask around here for getting a script IDE (this is where you'll be writing code). At work, we had Macs, so we had Monodevelop. Not sure if Monodevelop is bundled for Windows, as I use Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 for coding at home. If you have a choice of languages for your IDE, make sure you get one that supports C#.3. Go here http://unity3d.com/learn to find some tutorials and a (relatively) helpful forum community. The tutorials, in particular, will help you get your feet wet.

gnosis301:Summercat: Speaking as a guy with a strong grasp of what he wants, and the programming ability to do a (limited) version of it, and no idea on where to start, I envy this guy :P

/Complained on IRC channel that I don't know where to start.//Got told to draw ponies. :(

Gotta agree with the "Get Unity" poster. Here're a few tips.

1. Go here http://unity3d.com/ to download the editor. It should come with what you need.2. You might have to ask around here for getting a script IDE (this is where you'll be writing code). At work, we had Macs, so we had Monodevelop. Not sure if Monodevelop is bundled for Windows, as I use Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 for coding at home. If you have a choice of languages for your IDE, make sure you get one that supports C#.3. Go here http://unity3d.com/learn to find some tutorials and a (relatively) helpful forum community. The tutorials, in particular, will help you get your feet wet.

Don't know where to start on this particular project - think of it like a messy house where all the rooms are messy; I don't know where to start on cleaning the mess.

Summercat:Don't know where to start on this particular project - think of it like a messy house where all the rooms are messy; I don't know where to start on cleaning the mess.

But I do thank you for the advice.

I totally understand that feeling, especially when looking at a completely empty project in VS. The only other thing I can say to try to help is that when looking at something as large as a game, it's easy to get scared at the scope of it. See if you can divide and conquer. Building small things up to something big will keep you from getting overwhelmed. I wish you the best.

Bought this game, beat it in a few hours, have absolutely no regrets. I do recommend trying the demo, just to check out the different mechanics in the game. And at least so you can hack in and read some of the emails.

Summercat:I'm using Python for a text-based turn based strategy. I know what I want, I just don't know where to *start*.

Although I might try unity, but... I have an inability to learn coding languages, except apparently Python. And that, none too well.

Start at the beginning. Things are only as complicated as people allow them to be. Don't give up, yo. Just learn by doing, do more, learn more, do even more, improve upon what you've already learned while learning even more. The act of creating the game is even simpler than my previous sentence. The creaivity and ingenuity of the human mind; coupled with insatiable Will, is pretty powerful.

ParagonComplex:Summercat: I'm using Python for a text-based turn based strategy. I know what I want, I just don't know where to *start*.

Although I might try unity, but... I have an inability to learn coding languages, except apparently Python. And that, none too well.

Start at the beginning. Things are only as complicated as people allow them to be. Don't give up, yo. Just learn by doing, do more, learn more, do even more, improve upon what you've already learned while learning even more. The act of creating the game is even simpler than my previous sentence. The creaivity and ingenuity of the human mind; coupled with insatiable Will, is pretty powerful.